Sexting: It’s not just for teens anymore

New study also shows a mere 1 in 4 people text partners when they're both home.

Sexting is on the rise, texting is starting and ending arguments, and old people still have joint e-mail accounts. These are among the revelations of Pew’s most recent study on how technology is affecting couples, which shows in several areas that relationships, especially between young people, are increasingly affected by smartphones.

The report includes a lengthy section on sexting, that most fraught of online practices. Despite the fact that sexting often comes back to bite its participants—particularly teenagers and celebrities—it appears that older adults are giving it a try, too.

Forty-four percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have received a sext, and 34 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds have, too. These numbers may be on the low side, as other studies have suggested even higher rates in the lower age bracket. According to a report in August, 80 percent of 21-year-olds said they had received a sext, and 67 percent had sent one. Some lucky 4 percent of people older than 55 have also gotten a racy text, but less than 1 percent of them are replying in kind.

Overall, 20 percent of people have received a sext, and 9 percent have sent one. This is a moderate bump in activity from 2012, when only 15 percent of us had received a sext and 6 percent had sent them.

People who are not in relationships are more likely to sext. Forty-two percent of “single and looking” respondents to the survey have gotten a sext, and 23 percent have sent one. Pew did not control these stats (and many aspects of this study) for age, so it’s difficult to separate youthful behavior from that of the unattached.

Sexting behaviors across age groups. The results vary significantly from other studies, suggesting some underreporting happening. Given the taboo nature of sexting, this is not surprising.

A brave 3 percent of all respondents admitted to forwarding a sext to someone else, as did 6 percent of the 18 to 24 subset. Forwarding a sext is a pretty blatant violation of trust, but because it’s so rude, we would not be surprised if—like picking one’s nose—it gets underreported.

In other forms of intimacy via technology, the study shows that e-mail sharing has fallen by the wayside. Only older folks are still sharing e-mail accounts (47 percent of those 65 and older), apparently unaware that e-mail is now free as in lunch.

Password-sharing, on the other hand, is ubiquitous across all ages: 67 percent of people in a marriage or committed relationship have shared a password with their partner, including 64 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds. Admittedly, getting up from the couch to enter your Netflix password when your significant other is standing right next to the computer often seems like entirely too much work.

The study only skims the surface of how couples actually use technology to interact with each other. A shocking low of 25 percent of respondents in a relationship have texted each other while they were both at home, meaning a whopping 75 percent are still yelling for each other from room to room. Only 21 percent of respondents overall felt closer to each other because of online or text message conversations, and only 9 percent used them to resolve an argument they could not resolve in person.

While the overall numbers are low, the study shows that online communications are much more integral to young people’s relationships. Forty-one percent of 18- to 29-year-olds feel a closer bond with their partners because of online communications, and 23 percent have used them to solve an argument they could not solve in person. But young people also get more annoyed with each others’ use of technology, with 42 percent reporting that their significant other has been distracted by their mobile phone while they were together, compared to 25 percent of respondents overall.

Taking the prevalence of the ancient technology practices of older people (sharing e-mail addresses) together with the prevalence of new behaviors among young people (resolving arguments, ignoring each other in favor of cell phones), it seems that behaviors with online and mobile technologies may be somewhat resilient within an age group. But sexting seems to be transcending the age groups—a mobile activity that’s fun for everyone.